This activity is a short engineering design challenge to be completed by individual students or small teams. A real-world problem is presented, designing buildings for hurricane-prone areas, but in a simulated way that works in a classroom, after...(View More) school club, or informal education setting. Students are given simple materials and design requirements, and must plan and build a tower as tall as possible that will hold up a tennis ball while resisting the force of wind from a fan. After the towers are built, the group comes together to test them. If there is time after testing, which can be observational or framed as a contest between teams, students can redesign their towers to improve their performance, or simply discuss what worked well and what didn’t in their designs.(View Less)

This is an activity about the rotation of the Moon. Learners use a penny and a quarter to model that the Moon does indeed spin on its axis as it orbits the Earth. They find that the Moon keeps the same face toward the Earth, but receives...(View More) illumination from the Sun on all sides in turn. This activity is part of Explore! Marvel Moon, a series of activities developed specifically for use in libraries.(View Less)

Learners model how the Moon's volcanic period reshaped its earlier features. The children consider that the broad, shallow impact basins contained cracks through which magma seeped up. A plate in which slits have been cut is used to represent an...(View More) impact basin and a dish of red-colored water is used to represent the pockets of magma within the Moon's upper layers. When the model impact basin is pressed into the "magma," "lava" fills in the low areas through the same process that produced the dark patches, or maria, on the Moon. Children may examine a type of Earth rock (named basalt) that is also found on the Moon and that would have been shaped by the processes explored here. This station investigates the Moon's "teen years," when it was one to three billion years old. This activity is part of Explore! Marvel Moon, a series of activities developed specifically for use in libraries.(View Less)

This is an online sorting game that compares the lifetime risk of death from an asteroid impact to other threats. For example, are you more likely to be killed by an amusement park ride or an asteroid impact? It is part of the Killer Asteroids Web...(View More) Site. The site also features a background overview of the differences between asteroids and comets, information on different types of asteroids (rubble piles vs monoliths), a discussion of how at risk Earth really is to an asteroid or comet impact, and background information on light curves.(View Less)

This is a multi-level, physics-based game that asks players to save Earth by using their spaceship to deflect an incoming asteroid. It is designed to accurately reflect the physics of space and could be used to help confront preconceptions about...(View More) motion and forces in space. It is part of the Killer Asteroids Web Site. The site also features a background overview of the differences between asteroids and comets, information on different types of asteroids (rubble piles vs monoliths), a discussion of how at risk Earth really is to an asteroid or comet impact, and background information on light curves.(View Less)

This is a game about light curves that will test your ability to figure out things about an asteroid from just a graph of its brightness. Astronomers use telescopes to collect light curves - measurements of the brightness of distant asteroids over...(View More) time. It is part of the Killer Asteroids Web Site. The site also features a background overview of the differences between asteroids and comets, information on different types of asteroids (rubble piles vs monoliths), a discussion of how at risk Earth really is to an asteroid or comet impact, and background information on light curves.(View Less)

This is a game which focuses on the challenge of moving a "rubble pile" asteroid. Players have the option of using bombs, impactors, or "pusher" ships. It is a simpler version of Rubble! and part of the Killer Asteroids Web Site. The site also...(View More) features a background overview of the differences between asteroids and comets, information on different types of asteroids (rubble piles vs monoliths), and a discussion of how at risk Earth really is to an asteroid or comet impact.(View Less)

This is a website about asteroids and comets. Learners can play a physics-based asteroid game, learn about how backyard astronomers are contributing to asteroid research, or simulate an asteroid impact using a Google Earth Impact simulation....(View More) Includes background information about comets and asteroids and links to multimedia resources.(View Less)

This online game allows players to choose any location on Earth and impact it with a variety of different sized asteroids and comets. They can see how big the blast radius will be, and determine what size object it would take to wipe out their town....(View More) It is part of the Killer Asteroids Web Site. The site also features a background overview of the differences between asteroids and comets, information on different types of asteroids (rubble piles vs monoliths), a discussion of how at risk Earth really is to an asteroid or comet impact, and background information on light curves.(View Less)

The main scientific instrument on the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) is the Large Area Telescope (LAT). This interactive computer-based educational activity allows students and web users to see the results when gamma-ray photons of...(View More) different energies and incident angles hit the LAT. The photons convert into electron-positron pairs which travel through 19 interleaved layers of silicon into the cesium-iodide calorimeter. Background information about the mission and the LAT is also provided. Note: In 2008, GLAST was renamed Fermi, for the physicist Enrico Fermi.(View Less)